


Buttons vs Snaps

by Iggity



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Kale at the end, Multi, Supposed to be funny and light, This turned into a slight sister exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 09:24:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12528164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iggity/pseuds/Iggity
Summary: The first time Kara rips open her shirt, her buttons go flying. She groans because she knew, logically, that there would be at least one time when she pulled just a little too hard in her haste.





	Buttons vs Snaps

**Author's Note:**

> Hey I promise I'm still working on Checking In I just had this in my head for months and so I tossed most of it down, hid it away, and then found it again.
> 
> Alex does drop an f-bomb because really, can we let Alex Damn-vers say "fuck".
> 
> Please don't take this fic seriously but also I dropped a really obscure reference to chapter six of Checking In and I giggle every time I see it I love Past!Sam a lot. 
> 
> Okay, go do be enjoy

* * *

The first time Kara rips open her shirt, her buttons go flying. She groans because she knew, logically, that there would be at least one time when she pulled just a little too hard in her haste. She just didn't expect it to be on the first try, and certainly not with her absolute favourite shirt.

The text she sends Alex is saturated in disappointment and crying emojis. When she gets to her apartment afterwards, Alex is there with _three_ different ice cream flavours. Considering the fact that Alex still doesn't approve of Kara flying around as Supergirl, this is definitely an attempt at a peace offering.

Hours later, she says, “I know you don't think I should be doing this. I need to, though.”

Alex reaches across what feels like miles but is really just a couple of inches. Her fingers slip over Kara’s hand and squeeze.

“I know,” Alex says quietly.

Kara smiles sadly at the woman who has been her hero for over a decade. Alex puts her empty ice cream carton on the coffee table, opens her arms, and Kara immediately curls up against her sister.

“I love you,” she murmurs.

“Yeah, yeah, I love you, too,” Alex replies.

* * *

The second time she rips open her shirt, most of her buttons stay, but she tears holes in the fabric. The text she sends Alex this time is exasperated but not as sad as the first. Alex shows up at Kara’s apartment and they bounce ideas off of each other.

“Okay, or maybe you could just … _stop ripping your shirts off,_ ” Alex teases as they playfully fight over the last potsticker.

“But how else am I supposed to undress?” Kara asks. She manages to catch Alex’s chopsticks between her own. “Ripping off my shirt means I can just _go_.”

“You literally have super speed, Kara,” Alex reminds her, attempting an attack of her own after freeing her chopsticks. “Just use that.”

“That’s not as much _fun_. I bet Clark doesn’t have this problem,” Kara pouts.

Alex takes advantage of her sister’s weakness and bats her chopsticks away to successfully grab the last potsticker. She lets out a short shout of triumph and Kara’s pout deepens.

“No way, don’t even try it,” Alex warns. “You had more than half of them.”

“Fine, but I get more ice cream,” Kara says.

“Works for me.”

“Hey, no, wait, I was kidding!”

Alex grins as she pops the last potsticker in her mouth and then says, “still want it?”

“Gross. No, thanks, I’m good,” Kara grimaces.

A cackle echoes in Kara’s apartment after Alex swallows. She reaches down and pulls out another box of potstickers from a bag that Kara had been too distracted to notice.

“I get at _least_ one,” Alex says over Kara’s excited shout of, “best sister _ever_!”

* * *

The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth times Kara tears open her shirt, her results are a mix of missing buttons, finger holes, and straight up shreds of fabric that used to be considered shirts. She texts her sister.

 **Kara [3:17pm]** : Okay, I'm open to suggestion

 **Alex [3:24pm]** : ???

 **Kara [3:25pm]** : I don't make enough for my wardrobe to continue to take this abuse. I need ideas. Help me?

 **Alex [3:27pm]** : Oh, so my “don't rip your shirts open” idea wasn't good enough for you?

 **Kara [3:38pm]** : Aleeeeeeeeexxxxx

 **Alex [3:39pm]** : Wow you're way too good at that. Fine. I'll come over after work and we can brainstorm.

 **Kara [3:42pm]** : I LOVE YOU!!!!

* * *

“What if you make the button holes bigger?” Kara shoots Alex a skeptical look and Alex shrugs. “Okay, then _you_ come up with something!”

“Everything I've come up with has failed the test run,” Kara grumbles. “Including making the button holes bigger.”

“How did that _not_ work?”

“I might have forgotten to stitch the holes again and the buttons may have caught and tore the fabric. Possibly.”

“Right,” Alex drawls. “ _Possibly_.”

Kara hits her with a pillow.

“It also didn't work when I _did_ remember to stitch the holes again, thank you very much!”

Alex simply laughs.

* * *

 **Kara [2:03am]** : Emergency sister night

 **Kara [2:48am]** : !!!!!!!!!

 **Kara [3:19am]** : ALEX IT’S IMPORTANT

 **Alex [6:48am]** : Kara I swear to fuck if you weren't my sister I would kill you for texting me so early and also for nearly causing a heart failure

 **Kara [6:54am]** : what happened

 **Alex [7:12am]** : “Emergency” and “IMPORTANT” are not words that space themselves when you first read your text messages in the morning. I thought you were hurt!

 **Kara [7:14am]** : Awww, you LOVE me!

 **Alex [7:39am]** : Shut up, yes I love you. I’ll see you tonight.

* * *

When Alex shows up, Kara is beaming and she excitedly holds up a sewing can and a small plastic bag.

“ _This_ was the emergency?” Alex asks, kicking off her shoes and putting the pizza down. “We’re going to sew your clothes back together?”

“No, this is _better_  than that!” Kara exclaims. “We’re going to sew _snaps_ on _all of my shirts_!”

“How in the _hell_ is that a better plan?”

“Because I might possibly have already tested it on a shirt and it worked?”

Alex folds her arms over her chest and frowns at Kara. Kara’s smile slowly works its way into a pout and Alex sighs.

“Why do you need me to help with this? You know I'm garbage at sewing.”

“You sewed a perfectly functional pocket into my favourite dress,” Kara counters. “Besides, the two of us are going to be doing it _together_! Not only will it be fun, but we’ll be finished faster!”

Alex groans.

* * *

“These look ridiculous,” Alex says, holding up a completed shirt.

“You forgot to sew the buttons back on.”

“...back _on_?”

“They’re button up shirts, Alex,” Kara says. “Of course they look ridiculous without the buttons sewn back on.”

Kara has to stop herself from laughing at her sister. She can feel Alex glaring a hole in the side of her face and instead, she holds out her own nearly completed shirt.

“Look, see?” she asks, finally daring to look at Alex. “You sew up the holes, sew on the snaps, then sew the buttons on. That way, it looks like it’s a shirt that’s all buttoned up!”

“Wow, I can’t believe I was wrong.”

“About?”

“The shirt. _It’s_ not the thing that’s ridiculous; _you_ are.”

Kara pouts at her sister, knowing full well that Alex is teasing. It does the trick, though; soon Alex is sighing as she reaches for a previously discarded button. Kara grins in triumph and the two go back to sewing.

* * *

It’s been almost six months since Kara saved her from the plane. Six months since Kara let Winn design her super suit. Six months since Kara started juggling her two, incredibly different lives. Alex knows that it’s taken some time. Knows that it’s really _so very_ important to Kara that she’s able to do this. To help people the way that she’s wanted to since she saw Clark on the news a few years after she landed on Earth. To do the extraordinary things that Alura told her that she would.

“So, are you ever going to stop ripping your shirts off?” Alex asks one night.

Really, she means it teasingly. But she doesn't correct herself when the double meaning sinks in. The “are you going to stop being Supergirl?” question that she never quite means to ask. She really worries about her sister.

Kara looks over at her, pausing in her slurping of the noodles trailing from her mouth to her box of chinese takeaway. She slowly works the noodles into her mouth and chews thoughtfully for a moment.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “It’s actually kinda fun.”

“But you go through outfits really quickly when you have to literally rip out of your clothes, don’t you?”

“I always go back and pick them up.”

“What?”

“C’mon, Alex, do you really think I just leave my clothes hanging around National City?”

“Well… yeah, a little bit,” Alex admits sheepishly. “Ever since you started working with us, you seem too tired to do anything but come back here afterwards and crash.”

“Nah, I always go back and change again. Can’t be seen landing on my balcony too many times, right? It’ll be suspicious.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then why so concerned?” Kara chuckles, knocking her knee against Alex’s thigh. “I read the stuff, Hank talked to me, and I take it seriously. I don’t want anyone I love being hurt because I decided to become Supergirl.”

“Why _did_ you decide to become Supergirl?” Alex finally asks.

Kara puts her takeaway box on the coffee table and pauses Homeland.

“You know I would do pretty much anything for you,” Kara says, looking Alex in the eye. “You’re my sister; my family. I’ve already lost a family and I refuse to lose another one. Especially when I could have done something about it. So I did.”

“You could have just had it be the one time, though,” Alex whispers, her chopsticks sifting through her noodles for a piece of chicken.

“You still don’t understand.”

“I’m trying to.”

Never before has she been this soft with her sister. Considering how soft she’s been in the past, that’s really saying something. But Alex is concerned. She’s concerned about the woman beside her, the one who has become family, who looks up to her. She’s concerned because Kara is the best person she knows, the sweetest and kindest person in existence and fuck if she isn’t going to do everything in her power to make sure that her kid sister is safe.

Kara rests her hand on Alex’s knee and grips softly. The action yanks Alex back in time to when she first started teaching Kara how to control her strength. After extensive testing on a metal pole, human trials had resulted in several different bones being broken. Alex had grit her teeth and tried not to show Kara how much it hurt. Those times had also been a really good test for Kara’s x-ray vision. The fact that Kara now can grip Alex’s knee as gently as she is strikes Alex right in the heart and she feels her chest swell with pride.

“Landing that plane was probably the best thing I've ever done,” Kara says softly. “Mostly because you were on it, but also … also because I saved more than just you. I have these powers, Alex. I've felt like I've been selfish for not using them to help people. And saving that plane and then never helping again? I couldn't do it.

“And I love being Kara Danvers. I do, because she's human and your sister and she has friends who love her. But I'm also Supergirl, and I'm tired of hiding that.”

Alex covers the hand on her knee with her own. Kara gently turns her hand over to hold Alex’s.

“Okay,” Alex says softly.

“Okay?”

“Okay, I get it.”

“Really?”

Alex nods and Kara’s eyes well up. Her grip flexes minutely and Alex’s chest tightens further. She puts her takeaway box next to Kara’s and wraps her in a hug as tight as she can manage. The type of hug that she knows Kara aches for when they have talks like this. When they're ready, Kara readjusts herself on the couch so that she’s still as wrapped around Alex as she can be. Alex keeps her arms tightly around Kara and they spend the rest of the evening finishing up Homeland.

* * *

The seventeenth time Kara’s shirt tears, it’s not even her fault.

“How in the _hell_ do you get this undone?”

Kara laughs slightly against Lena Luthor’s mouth as Lena tries to slip the top button out of its hole. Right as Kara is about to tell her best friend (girlfriend? They should talk about that) that it’s a snap, the button comes off in Lena’s hand.

They look at each other and Kara can't stop the laugh that bubbles up from her throat. Lena looks absolutely terrified and it quickly shifts to indignation as she realizes that Kara’s shirt has -

“Snaps? Really, Supergirl?”

Kara presses her lips to Lena’s again. She feels Lena relax under the soft pressure and melt against her. She then whispers, “makes it easier to do this.”

Kara steps back and pulls her shirt open. Lena takes a shaky breath and then grins. Her fingers run over the place where Kara’s house crest would normally lay and Kara shivers.

“Definitely the best idea I've ever seen,” Lena replies thickly. “Mind continuing your demonstration?”

Okay, maybe a couple of the tears were Kara’s fault.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell with me on tumblr: karlenatrash or iggitywrites!


End file.
